Asher Kelman
OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
This is directed to those of us who are stuck on a plateau of competency to capture scenes but there's no essential dynamic thrust or identity coming from the work.
Let's start with who are we here?
Well, we're the most implausible mixture of talented pros, enthusiasts and amateurs of every possible background. The common thread in all our stories is a passion for making photographs. So how does one succeed? What makes pictures any better than the millions of snapshots taken each day by perfectly competent digicams with auto-everything activated?
You have a camera and anywhere you point it you can get a well exposed picture. If it's a fun moment, that might be valuable to you, if it's an assassination or Sarah Palin in bed with her on-off son in law, then you have something to sell. However, these are not the main thrust of OPF.
In OPF, we look to getting a kick out of each others signature work. We seek to be entertained and not overburdened with gear obsession or every snap we take, just the best. In doing so, we can energize each other and feel better for it!
There are many courses given and a few are even promoted in the Uptown Section of OPF. It's not OPF's job to teach, rather to exchange. So let's make a down-payment for which in return you will go out and shoot interesting pictures and share the best of them!
Your camera is just a tool for the mind to express ideas through the picture. If there's nothing in your mind to be externalized, then we cannot expect much of the picture.
Let me tell you what I think is unimportant:
Let me share, in no particular order, "matters", alone or in combination, that might give you a "winning picture"
Goals that come from within oneself. Here's how I see it:
One needs to be there, standing on one's own two feet, knowing one's own own likes and dislikes, thinking one's own thoughts, having enjoyment or angst from parts of life that feed a need to observe, create and direct the camera. Much as it might be possible to meddle with your life, we cannot find your true love. Only you can.
The suggestion is this.
Write down what interests you the most in photography and where would you be happiest working to make pictures? By where is meant, what part of the universe of possible subjects and purposes where photography can be applied, would you seek to put your efforts?
Alain Briot, for example, is committed to Landscape photography. While it's true I really like a picture he made of a bicycle leaning against a wall in Paris, his job, his devotion, is Landscape of the often dry, but sometimes snow-capped National Parks of the Western USA. Frank Doorhof photographs glamor. He gets paid for that and can teach you like no one else. Ask him to do street photography and you'd make him nervous. Nicolas Claris Photographs the architecture of the grandest sailboats and motor cruisers in the world. Also modern architecture. I have as yet to see equally amazing pictures of landscapes or figure studies. Jim Galli coaxes angel-light to paint soft forms to large sheets of film using lenses older than all of us here! His work is uniquely craftsmanlike and artistic. Each image, whether of a man, a flower or a car, has, in its make up, the devotion of a portraitist's mind.
All these photographers are devoted to one idea: to be excellent and top of the field in one area that makes them happy. Our enjoyment of their photography is actually an extension of their own happiness.
So where does one start? If the photographer has no devotion it's unlikely, IMHO, that much worthwhile will come of whatever effort is made. Art ultimately may have an absolute requirement for some directed motivation by the would-be artist. So "what you want to do most", must be the starting point.
Write down you interests. Pick even 3-4 topics. Buy only one book, go to local galleries/museums to see more of these subjects. Plan pictures for one of your topics, just for now. Sketch the shot on paper and eventually in your mind. Shoot, select the best, print in B&W and draw on your pictures any needed changes and repeat until you have 10 pictures you like. Then post the best here.
Yes, it does seem rather obsessional and at first even work against one's free spirit. However, if one doesn't formally discipline oneself with a narrow goal, one cannot satisfy oneself that one has done something one wanted.
If you have fun snaps in the meanwhile, share them too. However, know the difference!
Asher
Let's start with who are we here?
Well, we're the most implausible mixture of talented pros, enthusiasts and amateurs of every possible background. The common thread in all our stories is a passion for making photographs. So how does one succeed? What makes pictures any better than the millions of snapshots taken each day by perfectly competent digicams with auto-everything activated?
You have a camera and anywhere you point it you can get a well exposed picture. If it's a fun moment, that might be valuable to you, if it's an assassination or Sarah Palin in bed with her on-off son in law, then you have something to sell. However, these are not the main thrust of OPF.
In OPF, we look to getting a kick out of each others signature work. We seek to be entertained and not overburdened with gear obsession or every snap we take, just the best. In doing so, we can energize each other and feel better for it!
There are many courses given and a few are even promoted in the Uptown Section of OPF. It's not OPF's job to teach, rather to exchange. So let's make a down-payment for which in return you will go out and shoot interesting pictures and share the best of them!
Your camera is just a tool for the mind to express ideas through the picture. If there's nothing in your mind to be externalized, then we cannot expect much of the picture.
Let me tell you what I think is unimportant:
- Even illumination
- A fine lens
- Accurate focus
- The entire object
- A particular composition according to some rule
- The correct colors
- Good resolution
Let me share, in no particular order, "matters", alone or in combination, that might give you a "winning picture"
- An interesting subject shown in a novel way
- Your recognized imprint seen in other works too
- Something that has secrets
- Amazing beauty
- Striking disorder
- Balance and disorder in some state of energized equilibrium
- Humor
- Providing a form wherein one can wonder and wander
- Something that seems to own an identity and almost lives
- Embedded conundra
- references to literature, mythology and other cultural elements of our civilizations
- and so much more
Goals that come from within oneself. Here's how I see it:
One needs to be there, standing on one's own two feet, knowing one's own own likes and dislikes, thinking one's own thoughts, having enjoyment or angst from parts of life that feed a need to observe, create and direct the camera. Much as it might be possible to meddle with your life, we cannot find your true love. Only you can.
The suggestion is this.
Write down what interests you the most in photography and where would you be happiest working to make pictures? By where is meant, what part of the universe of possible subjects and purposes where photography can be applied, would you seek to put your efforts?
Alain Briot, for example, is committed to Landscape photography. While it's true I really like a picture he made of a bicycle leaning against a wall in Paris, his job, his devotion, is Landscape of the often dry, but sometimes snow-capped National Parks of the Western USA. Frank Doorhof photographs glamor. He gets paid for that and can teach you like no one else. Ask him to do street photography and you'd make him nervous. Nicolas Claris Photographs the architecture of the grandest sailboats and motor cruisers in the world. Also modern architecture. I have as yet to see equally amazing pictures of landscapes or figure studies. Jim Galli coaxes angel-light to paint soft forms to large sheets of film using lenses older than all of us here! His work is uniquely craftsmanlike and artistic. Each image, whether of a man, a flower or a car, has, in its make up, the devotion of a portraitist's mind.
All these photographers are devoted to one idea: to be excellent and top of the field in one area that makes them happy. Our enjoyment of their photography is actually an extension of their own happiness.
So where does one start? If the photographer has no devotion it's unlikely, IMHO, that much worthwhile will come of whatever effort is made. Art ultimately may have an absolute requirement for some directed motivation by the would-be artist. So "what you want to do most", must be the starting point.
Write down you interests. Pick even 3-4 topics. Buy only one book, go to local galleries/museums to see more of these subjects. Plan pictures for one of your topics, just for now. Sketch the shot on paper and eventually in your mind. Shoot, select the best, print in B&W and draw on your pictures any needed changes and repeat until you have 10 pictures you like. Then post the best here.
Yes, it does seem rather obsessional and at first even work against one's free spirit. However, if one doesn't formally discipline oneself with a narrow goal, one cannot satisfy oneself that one has done something one wanted.
If you have fun snaps in the meanwhile, share them too. However, know the difference!
Asher
